Letters to the editor

Date rape drugs serious concern

I recently learned that recently one of my friends was given the date rape drug at a bar. Apparently, she wandered off and the people she was with could not find her and subsequently left without her.
Yes, people do prey on others in this small college town of ours and it is important to know what to do if you or a friend has been drugged.
First, call the local police or the campus police if the incident occurred on campus. The hospital encourages students to get blood, urine, pregnancy and STD tests and to be treated for any injuries there.
The hospital also said that it is important to note that the state of Virginia will not cover the costs of the tests unless the police are involved and the victim is willing to press criminal charges.
However, the health center does offer free HIV tests and STD and pregnancy tests at reasonable prices.
And, of course, the Women’s Resource Center on campus is always available to students for advice and counseling.
According to the "Your Right To Know" pamphlets available in the Women’s Resource Center, common effects of date rape drugs include a drunken appearance, drowsiness, light-headedness, staggering, confusion, and amnesia that may last up to 24 hours.
If your friend is acting funny after one or two beers, alarms should sound in your head.
Because my friend cannot remember anything, she has no idea what happened between her one beer and the next morning — a very unsettling thought.
We must watch out for each other’s safety.
Always remember the cardinal rules of partying: go to parties or bars in groups and never leave without your friends.
So as you go out this weekend, remember that predators exist and the best protection is awareness.

Danielle Karnes
senior, modern foreign languages/ international affairs
Women’s Resource Center volunteer

Patience needed with button-pushing

Have you noticed how our society has become fascinated with buttons and the instantaneous reactions we expect upon pushing them?
With a couple of pushes on a television remote, we can visit kangaroos in Australia or penguins in Alaska. With a few mouse clicks on the computer, we can visit the Milky Way.
But to push an elevator button multiple times and expect the doors to open immediately tests the patience of those who press the button once and then watch it being pressed multiple times.
Trust me — the elevator won’t come any quicker the more times the call button is pressed. Nor will your credit card transaction go through any faster if you keep hitting the buttons on the credit card machine even though the cashier told you that you don’t need to press anything else.
Just because getting satisfaction isn’t as quick as one would expect, doesn’t mean that something isn’t happening.
I too am also at fault in the era of button instantness. I am used to surfing the Internet on high-speed lines, so when I’m at my boyfriend’s house and am asked if I want to check my e-mail, I refuse because surfing the ‘net on dial-up is akin to visiting the dentist.
In a perfect world, we would be Jetson-like and have the elevator doors open immediately or our food presented for us just on our say-so like the food replicator on "Star Trek."
So until those days arrive, press the button once, take a deep breath and relax.

Lisa Corbo
sophomore, modern foreign languages

Government has only one voice now

The display of "Support Our Troops" stickers on motor vehicles is a little like preaching to the choir. Most would agree that the troops should have the support of all Americans.
Just as carpenters do not ask "Why build?"soldiers seldom ask policy questions. That job is left to the policy-makers in Washington.
In asking such questions, should policy-makers consider the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis forced to live and to die within a war zone and the many more who are likely to die in the future? Should decision-makers in Washington consider the thousands of reservists and National Guard members trapped within a system that has been described as a "backdoor draft?" Is it moral for the Pentagon to require that people die in order that the great democratic principles that have served the United States so well be "tested" in other countries? Do noble goals necessarily justify the means currently being used to achieve them? Does the large turnout in the recent elections mean all is well with democracy in Iraq?
As more and more members of the Bush administration seem to speak with just one voice, we wonder if such questions (or any questions at all) are being asked. Or are dissenters routinely silenced? Who knows what goes on within the corridors of power.

John Clem
alumnus ‘72

SGA should vote internally

As a junior at JMU, this will be my third SGA election, and I write today to express my total lack of faith in SGA election system. SGA, an organization that is supposedly representative of JMU students, operates with little to no accountability until spring, when the election season starts. All of a sudden, candidates running for SGA office start looking for the support of regular students, attempting to show us that they care about our concerns. After the election, they go back to business as usual.
In my three years as a student, I have experienced no difference between SGA presidents or legislative bodies. From my knowledge, the only way students interact with SGA is when they are asking for money, and more often than not, they receive the funds they need for their project. Other than that, SGA has little interaction with the student body, and is in no way accountable for their actions.
In my opinion, SGA should operate like any other club and elect its own officers. Since the most informed people on the affairs of student government are those involved in SGA, they would logically make the best choice on who will do a good job. It is illogical and irresponsible to leave the decision up to an uniformed student body who know nothing about the candidate except for what he or she plans to do. If SGA really desires to be an important organization on campus, it needs to do more than barrage students with clever slogans and shiny fliers for a week— it needs to become more accountable and better engage the student body.

Bobby McMahon
junior, political science